Soon after, Haifeng arrived at the VIP reception room.
"Director Ren, I was tied up in another meeting—sorry to keep you waiting."
There, seated simply in plain clothes, was Mr. Ren, the legendary founder of Huawei, smiling gently. Haifeng greeted him with complete respect, clasping hands the traditional way.
Ren stood and returned the gesture with equal warmth.
"Director Lu, I'm disturbing you—dropping in uninvited."
Beside him stood Xu Wenwei, Huawei's Vice President.
Ren introduced him formally.
"This is our company's Vice President, Xu Wenwei.
I hope Director Lu will take good care of him."
Haifeng responded in kind, introducing Zhang Yu from China Star.
Xu Wenwei couldn't help but notice the tone of deference in Ren's voice—and it confused him.
Haifeng was a rising star but not yet at the top. Why was the company founder being this… polite?
But as he continued watching Haifeng speak, it became clear.
The man wasn't just a founder.
He was a commander.
Xu realized he wasn't qualified to negotiate with Haifeng directly. He was an assistant in the presence of equals.
After some brief pleasantries, Haifeng cut through the formalities.
"Mr. Ren, I'll get straight to the point—what brings you to China Star today?"
Ren waved a hand.
"Nothing formal. I came uninvited. But I wanted to ask if our two companies… could cooperate?"
"On what exactly?" Haifeng asked.
"Anything we can cooperate on," Ren replied seriously.
"After all, we share the same mission."
Haifeng didn't bother with evasiveness.
"Semiconductors. Lithography. Communications. Cloud computing—
We're open to full cooperation."
Ren burst into laughter and turned to Xu Wenwei.
"See? Didn't I tell you he's a straight-talker who understands the big picture?
There's no point discussing whether to compete or cooperate."
Zhang Yu looked a bit confused. Haifeng had just handed over all the cards.
But Haifeng explained calmly:
"There are already too few companies in China focused on core technologies.
What kind of example would we set—fighting among ourselves on the global stage?"
Then Haifeng took it further.
"We're brother companies.
I will authorize Huawei to use our communication technology for free."
"China Star will stay out of the communication field for the next 10–20 years.
Let's focus on beating foreign companies and building our international standards."
"As for the long-term future… we'll cross that bridge later."
Ren smiled broadly.
"Yes, yes. That's precisely the spirit.
We Chinese must twist ourselves into a rope and pull together."
"If we unite, there's nothing we can't accomplish."
Then, candidly, he revealed:
"Huawei had already begun developing lithography machines.
The project was approved early last year."
"But after seeing China Star Lab's R&D capabilities, we're considering suspending our project."
Ren paused, watching Haifeng's expression.
"Of course, we also wanted to bring up… your Star Series.
We're entering the low-end market ourselves, so there might be some overlap."
Haifeng just smiled.
"Without competition, there's no pressure.
Without pressure, there's no innovation."
"If we both enter, our foreign rivals must work harder."
That caught Ren and Xu off guard.
They suddenly remembered something strange:
The Xingchen chips were released last year, but no matching phones have been launched.
Only Dami Mobile released a low-end model using it.
It wasn't that Haifeng wanted to dominate the market.
It was that he wanted others to step up, too.
Haifeng was well aware of Huawei's plans.
They were likely spinning off the Honor series to focus on low-end phones.
While Huawei's profits still mainly came from communications,
smartphones were crucial for brand influence and global presence.
As for the lithography project, Ren likely felt the heat.
Huawei had succeeded in Europe but was hitting walls overseas.
They couldn't afford to fall behind—hence the push for full-stack self-reliance.
And lithography? That was the bottleneck of all bottlenecks.
Haifeng knew this well.
Without it, you couldn't even manufacture chips—no matter how brilliant your designs.